Beauty pageants

The finale of the Miss Universe Pageant is around noon on Sunday, and yet, if you go to the official pageant site, it is in a state of disarray. The links to “Contestants,” “Competition,” etc. don’t work. You see an error message like this: If you forget about the links and hunt around, there actually is a Contestants page. But here again, if you click on a photo to learn »

Is this perfect timing, or what? If you have had it with hideous old men behaving badly, it’s time to pay attention to some beautiful young women behaving, almost without exception, well. The conclusion of the 2017 Miss Universe pageant is less than four days away. The finale will be Sunday on Fox, live from Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. If I am reading the pageant site’s countdown clock correctly, »

The Legends Football League (LFL), which used to be the Lingerie Football League, has decided that it will not take a knee for the national anthem. Why do I have the suspicion their ratings are about to go up? And question for Mueller’s investigators: Does Donald Trump have a financial interest in the LFL? LOL for the LFL if he does! Hat tip: The Free Beacon. »

I hate to intrude on John’s beat, but he’s missed an important development in not covering the just-completed Miss USA competition, won by Kara McCullough, a scientist working at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. When asked if she thinks health care is a right or a privilege, she gets the right answer without hesitation: JOHN adds: I am late to the party here, but we should note that it wasn’t only »

Great Britain has controlled Gibraltar since 1713, but Spain wants it back. Seizing on Brexit as an excuse, the Spanish government has started exerting pressure on the Rock. For example, it is imposing Schwengen controls at the border, where 10,000 Spaniards commute every day: But Gibraltar has no intention of giving in. Gibraltar has a new mayor; the Gibraltar Chronicle reports: New mayor Kaiane Lopez broke records yesterday as both »

The finale of the Miss Universe pageant is tomorrow evening at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. It will be televised on Fox. This year’s competition has generated relatively few headlines. There have been no scandals, no recent terrorist threats, and with one exception noted below, it has been hard to find a political angle. Eighty-six contestants are competing for the Miss Universe crown; you can learn about them on the Miss Universe »

The finale of the Miss Universe pageant is only nine days away, and betting is starting to get heavy. I wrote about a few of my favorite contestants, including Miss USA, here. With the betting odds firming up, it is time to check out the favorites. Currently in first place is Miss Colombia, Andrea Tovar, at 4-1. After last year’s fiasco, when Miss Colombia was mistakenly crowned the winner only »

The Miss Universe pageant is coming around again; the finale will take place in Manila on January 29. Somewhat weirdly, they are calling it “Miss Universe 2016,” even though it is actually Miss Universe 2017. You may remember last year’s pageant, when the announcer mistakenly announced Miss Dominican Republic as the winner, only to have to retract after the crown had been placed on her head, and award the title »

As has been widely remarked, TV ratings for the NFL are down sharply this year. I don’t have an opinion about whether it is partly to to Colin Kaepernick’s capers, or other defects of the game today, but at least we still have NFL cheerleaders to cheer us up. Unless you’re a Cleveland Browns fan. There, apparently, even the cheerleaders can’t cheer up anyone. That’s the subject of our Video »

In another crummy news week, this has to be the worst story: Victoria’s Secret Turns Its Back on the Catalog By KHADEEJA SAFDAR First, Playboy stopped running nude photos. Now, Victoria’s Secret will stop mailing out its famous catalogs of scantily clad models. L Brands Inc., the parent company of Victoria’s Secret, this week unveiled strategic changes that include “evolving how the business connects with customers through more focus on loyalty programs and »

John likes to write about beauty pageants; I like to write about soccer. The two topics converge in an unfortunate story out of Seattle, Washington: Miss Washington USA Stormy Keffeler is a possible suspect in the stabbing of MLS player Marco Pappa last month in a confusing incident that could cost the troubled beauty queen her crown. Keffeler, who also has a DUI arrest to her name, gave differing accounts »

To take a break from the uniformly bad news of politics and the world, I watched the Miss Universe pageant last night. Like all the rest of the news, it turned into painful viewing. It struck me that the event provided an almost unbelievable illustration of what Aristotle explicated in his Poetics as peripeteia (sudden reversal of circumstances) in Greek drama. Peripeteia is what excites terror and pity among the »

Tonight’s Miss Universe pageant concluded with a fiasco, as the announcer apparently misunderstood the final rankings and announced Miss Colombia, Ariadna Gutierrez Arévalo, as the winner. Miss Colombia was crowned, presented with flowers and paraded around the stage for a couple of minutes when, to the astonishment of all, the announcer returned and said that he had made a mistake: the real winner was Miss Philippines, Pia Wurtzbach. They mercifully »

On Thursday, I previewed the favorites in this year’s Miss Universe contest, which wraps up tomorrow beginning at 7 p.m. Eastern. As always, the betting favorites aren’t necessarily the contestants that I (or anyone else) likes best. So this post is devoted to contestants who probably won’t win, but whom I think you will appreciate. First, Miss Albania, Megi Luka: For some reason, Balkan beauty queens tend to look a »

Betting odds on the Miss Universe competition are now firming up, with the finale just 72 hours away. Some of the betting leaders we have already previewed here and here, others not. It is interesting: this year, I am not particularly impressed by the betting favorites, as compared with others in the field. The current betting favorite is Miss Australia, Monika Radulovic. As we see over and over in international »

The Miss Universe pageant is in full swing. My initial preview was just four days ago, but since then a profusion of photos has appeared that confirm my impression that this is one of the strongest beauty pageant fields ever. Between now and the contest finale a week from Sunday, I may need to do a post every day just to keep up. In my initial post I featured some »

It is time to start previewing the 2015 Miss Universe pageant. The contestants have gathered in Las Vegas and the competition is under way. The finale will be on Sunday, December 20, and will be broadcast on Fox. This year’s competition could have had an interesting tie-in with the 2016 presidential campaign, as Donald Trump has co-owned the pageant with NBC for some years. However, in the initial burst of »